However, despite its small size, the Illinois portion of the Lake Michigan watershed is home to half of the total population of Illinois and the lake itself is the largest public drinking water supply in the state, serving nearly 6.6 million people (of a total of over 10 million lake-wide).
Can you drink water straight out of Lake Michigan?
Most officials and environmental experts interviewed said the drinking water from Lake Michigan supplied to 7 million people in Chicago and its suburbs is considered safe and tasty, especially compared with water from other municipalities around the nation.
Can you drink straight from the Great Lakes?
The Great Lakes are an abundant source of fresh drinking water; with proper treatment, that water is safe to enjoy. At Efilters.net, our experts provide high-quality water filtration systems for your home or business.
Who gets drinking water from Lake Michigan?
Illinois residents
More than 6 ½ million Illinois residents get their drinking water from Lake Michigan. As northeastern Illinois’ supply of groundwater shrinks, more municipalities are considering joining that number.
What states get drinking water from Lake Michigan?
Throughout the Great Lakes Basin — which includes all of Michigan and parts of Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as well as the province of Ontario in Canada — more than 35 million people rely on the Great Lakes for their drinking water supply.
Is Lake Michigan water clean?
Lake Michigan has become dramatically clearer in last 20 years — but at a steep cost. Decades ago, Lake Michigan teemed with nutrients and green algae, casting a brownish-green hue that resembled the mouth of an inland river rather than a vast, open-water lake.
Is Lake Michigan polluted?
Despite this, Lake Michigan is the most polluted of the Great Lakes, according to estimates by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Last year, nearly 22 million pounds of plastic were dumped into the Great Lakes — over half of which were dumped into Lake Michigan — according to estimates by RIT.
Can you filter water from Lake Michigan?
Theoretically, a filter that meets the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) P231 standards will be sufficient to make Lake Michigan drinkable (see Making Sense of Water Filter Certification, PS August 2016).
Are Great Lakes clean?
The overall condition of the Great Lakes has been assessed as “fair and unchanging” in the 2019 State of the Great Lakes joint report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environmental and Climate Change Canada, published on June 3.
Is Lake Michigan salty?
The Great Lakes are freshwater ecosystems. Traditionally, Lake Michigan, for example, has been a very low-salt lake, with levels around one milligram of chloride per liter of water. Over the years, due to our increased salt use, that level has steadily but gradually climbed up to 15 milligrams per liter.
Is it safe to swim in Lake Michigan?
Swimming in Lake Michigan is an ‘ at your own risk’ activity. All beaches managed by Milwaukee County parks do NOT have lifeguards. For current water quality reports along Lake Michigan visit the Wisconsin Beach Health website for water-quality reports.
Why can’t California get water from the Great Lakes?
The two reasons: 1) the process of moving water that far, and that high, wouldn’t make economic sense; 2) Great Lakes water is locked down politically. The ongoing drought in California has hit its fourth year.
How deep is Lake Michigan?
Approximately 118 miles wide and 307 miles long, Lake Michigan has more than 1,600 miles of shoreline. Averaging 279 feet in depth, the lake reaches 925 feet at its deepest point.
Is China taking water from the Great Lakes?
The blogosphere and news sites have been bristling that former President of the United States, Barack Obama allowed water from the Great Lakes region to be pumped and sold to China. It’s a Lie.
Is Lake Michigan good water?
With the exception of the polar ice caps, the Great Lakes system is the largest (95,000 square miles) source of fresh surface water in the world and holds approximately 22% of the planet’s fresh water.
Does Chicago get drinking water from Lake Michigan?
While we may think our region enjoys an unlimited amount of freshwater, that is not true. One of Chicago’s water cribs, where water is pumped from Lake Michigan to supply parts of our region with drinking water.
Which Great Lake is the cleanest?
Lake Superior
Watershed’s surface: 209,000 square kms. Lake Superior is the largest, cleanest, and wildest of all the Great Lakes.
Is Lake Michigan toxic?
According to an analysis by the Chicago Tribune, the Oak Creek plant is the largest source of toxic metals being discharged into Lake Michigan, dumping more than 2,000 pounds of potentially brain-damaging toxic metals into the water last year.
Is Lake Michigan drying up?
Now in the past year, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are declining rapidly. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has measured the decline in water levels on Lake Michigan and Lake Huron at 17 inches since July 2020. One inch of water on Lake Michigan and Lake Huron represents 800 billion gallons of water.
Why is the water so blue in Lake Michigan?
When the lake is shallow, light scatters and reflects shorter wavelengths of light, causing a lighter blue color to appear. The blue color is a product of blue light being bounced around by the physical structure of water and the color of the sky.
Which Great Lake has no fish?
Lake Michigan
Nearly two decades later, the same progression is happening in Lake Michigan. “There’s an old Chinese saying, ‘When there is crystal-clear water, there is no fish,’ ” said Yu-Chun Kao, a postdoctoral scientist at Michigan State University.